JadKni

My vote would go to /Traps or /TA so that you can stack tons of -Res with the Achilles Heel proc in your pets.

Mercs with procs don't become "on par" with other sets in single-target damage, they frickin' destroy. I wouldn't mind seeing them buffed, but from what I've seen, they honestly don't *need* it.

Thanks for the review. I've had to take the arc down for awhile, but when I revamp it and put it back up, I'll definitely make some changes based on these comments.

Add bonus damage to knockback-ing attacks based on the distance they fly (or their velocity when they hit a wall, or something. I don't know what's possible), make the KB in energy blast guaranteed so that it can be better managed. I like KB, but I don't think it really constitutes a secondary effect all on its' own, only because nine times out of ten it'll just get you kicked regardless of whether you're helping or not and it's difficult to use effectively anyway.

What I'm doing on my fire/ tank is CJ, Hover, and Weave with the +defense Steadfast global in temp protection. It works rather nicely, I have 13% just from those alone unslotted, approaching 20% slotted. With sets, I'll be capping ranged defense (blastank concept, don't question the concept, just replace ranged with melee and you're gold.)

Having finally gotten around to rolling a tanker that I could bear to take well into the higher levels, I'll confidently say that tanks are just fine. Almost ridiculously strong overall. Any claims of being too weak are a fabrication. No, they don't hit as hard as the damage dealing AT. The fact that they can approach that AT in damage is scary on its' own.

You know, I did notice that. I wonder why RoF has such a low DPA, even if every single tic hits. Oh well, it's muling a set and it gives him an AoE option. And it's basically the only decent migitation he has.

Not planning to exemp often on this one, no. Thanks, this will work great. Any holes in the chain that were there are gone now.

There was a topic awhile ago on the DPS of an Elec/Elec, and someone cited Fire/Elec as having the best possible chain. I've been playing around in Mids trying to squeeze the most out of this build, and want to know what I could change to make this better. I threw Rain of Fire and Hot Feet in as ways of doing damage that wouldn't interfere with the chain. There may be a few small gaps, but BU/Aim/Surveillance/Rain should serve as filler for those tiny gaps. And yes, I did roll this character. Anything missing?

My first and only blaster to 50 is a Fire/Fire/Fire, it's been a real lesson in how not to die. Well, up until Rise of the Phoenix, which has been a lesson in where to die. Blasters are a long road to 50, you'll definitely learn a lot about enemy AI leveling one.

I speak from the perspective of an Ill/Storm, which is going to play very differently from other /Storm controllers, so don't take it as sagely advice.

I found O2 and Snowstorm skippable. O2 is a heal. I am a controller. I have better things to do than top people off. (My 'tanking' pets are immune to healing, though, so perhaps it'd help you keep Singy alive, though as I understand it he's rather immortal anyway.) Snowstorm really doesn't help if you're doing your job as a controller and flat-out locking them down anyway, and it really hogs endurance. I skipped Thunderclap as well, but I can see it being useful if you have a primary with an AoE stun, like Gravity. Still, it scatters enemies and that isn't doing me much good. Tornado can be tricky to use, but it's great when used correctly. Pinning them in a corner with hurricane and unleashing tornado is dastardly effective. And no matter what any idiot team member tells you, do not skip hurricane. Ever.

It's basically a cone confuse that's up very often and has a great arc and range. Just target the enemy in the very back and initiate using it, you should hit all/most of the mob every time.

Spore Burst isn't very useful, really. Plant can and will get by fine just using Entangler, Seeds, Carrion Creepers, and Vines (even Vines isn't entirely vital, but it's a TAoE hold. What's not to like?)

Hard to describe, yes, but here's the short version:

It knocks things down like no other.

It scales to mob size extremely well.

It's an amazing slow.

Everything caught inside will be immobilized quickly.

The vines tend to soak a lot of aggro that would otherwise be directed at you.

Given, as stated in my signature, #1 and #4 are mutually exclusive... but when that first one is happening, it's happening a lot.

Arc Name: In Pursuit of Liberty
Arc ID: 221702
Author: @Gypsy Rose

Character: Mist Runner (50 Controller) running on Unyielding (Difficulty 4)

Our contact is Ms. Liberty. A child was kidnapped seven years ago, and we’ll be going back in time to rescue her before something. Well, this is already sounding fishy. Her text comes off as a little on the cynical side, but I’d be skeptical too giving a request like that. Her closing statement of there not being much time was ironic.

Mission One: We’re confronted by the Family in this mission, not terribly challenging at this level range. Deeper into the mission, we find Little Liberty being held captive by the Anti-Liberty League, a strange choice of organization name. Judging by their descriptions, they’re emotionally-powered brainwashed soldiers serving a man called ‘MAL’. After freeing Little Liberty, I grab a glowie revealing that the bad dudes are taking an interest in her family tree, then backtrack to find Agent Liberty who spawned a bit out of the way. Reading the clue text provided post-completion, we find that the Anti-Liberty League is a nemesis group to the Liberty Group that Agent Liberty was part of (imagine that.) On to the next mission.

Mission Two: Liberty sends us off to rescue the brat again, who has gone cavediving this time. We get the feeling that Ms. Liberty has some personal connection to Little Liberty. More ironic time-related sendoff text. As expected, the cave is filled with the Anti-Liberty League. It isn’t long before I find (and ditch) Little Liberty to go grab the treasure for myself. It turns out to be a red and blue costume (?). I know I’ve said that story wasn’t a big deal to me, but this one seemed off. How did she know to come here for the costume, and why was it here? Next mission.

Mission Three: Seven years later, AKA today, Little 21-year-old Liberty has managed to go missing again. Le sigh. I’m still confused as to Little Liberty’s relationship with the Liberty League and Ms. Liberty. Is she a member? Is Ms. Liberty? Hrm. The enemy faction this time is the Evil Garden Dwellers. I’m a little mystified by who they’re supposed to be, maybe a little bit of critter customization could help here? We meet up with an older Little Liberty, now Liberty Rose Jones, who is an EB. Should she be this strong at this stage of her career? Maybe a boss would be more fitting. Fern Fatale, who seems to be the leader of the Garden Dwellers, is a Plant/Thorn dominator. The journal indicates that the costume Liberty is wearing is magical, as well as a pair of magical swords that I imagine Liberty will be picking up later. Next mission.

Mission Four: We’re finally given the connection between Ms. Liberty and Liberty Rose. Rose is Liberty’s niece if I understood correctly. We’ll be traveling into a “possible future” this time to recover the swords and prevent whatever dark future we’re heading into. And once within… Dark Alliance? Rularuu, Rikti, Siege bots, Arachnos, Antimatter robots, 5th Column, and Nemesis (plot, presumably.) I realize that this is a dark future, but these guys really need some cohesion. It seems like a random pile of existing mobs, honestly. I find Statesman pretty quickly, who gives me a note to hand off to Rose and tells me to find the swords. I do so, and mission fin. I do have to take a moment here to say that painting one’s character as the only hope for the world (else extradimensional aliens and Nazis ally..?) is ridiculous. I could accept it if this dystopian future made a little more sense. Next mission.

Mission Five: Liberty once again needs rescuing, from the Anti-Liberty League now. And finally, we confront the Dark Lord Al, otherwise known as Master Al/MAL. He… doesn’t seem to have any backstory whatsoever. His dialog is unpunctuated and just extremely awkward. The legions of dark miasmaists make this fight extremely tedious and drawn-out. After two return trips, I’ve cleared out the rest and defeated MAL, and simultaneously rescued Rose whose captor group inevitably joined the fight. “Any way” in the mission return text should be “anyway”. Arc over, world saved.

Custom Factions: Ew. Dark miasmaists as lieutenants or minions tend to be extremely frustrating, and this was no exception. They were packing unreal amounts of –tohit, and the stacked tar patches made for massive slowing and –resist. The nature of these mobs should really be rethought. If you’re looking for a Fear-themed enemy, I’d suggest taking out a few of the non-Fearsome Stare powers and giving them Dark Melee for touch of fear. As is, they’re extremely annoying and not terribly fun.
The rest of the faction was okay, the theme they had going wasn’t too bad even if it felt a little disjointed. The “Feline Followers” were too much of a stretch. It seemed more like a token catgirl than an appropriate addition to the faction. MAL himself was very nondescript and didn’t make much of an impression on me, though that was likely because he was utterly upstaged by the Fearsome Followers.
I’d also like to take a moment to talk about the factions of normal mobs. There’s very little cohesion between the enemies with the Garden Dwellers, and even less (none at all) with the Dark Alliance. These need either custom descriptions or some other text to explain why there are Rularuu Wisps working with Devouring Earth and Fifth Column working with Observers and Antimatter Robots.

The Good: The Anti-Liberty League had an interesting theme going with the exception of the Feline Followers.

The Bad: Ms. Liberty’s dialog sounds very uncharacteristic at times. Origin stories almost always fall into the trap of making the character the focus and the person playing the arc an irrelevant side-character, only meant to facilitate the character’s rise to awesomeness. Rose being an EB didn’t help this image at all, especially when the rest of the Liberties were mere bosses. The whole arc has a disconnected feeling to it, and though I don’t usually put a whole lot of stock into the stories (I’m not looking for Charles Dickens here), I couldn’t ignore how this simply didn’t come together well.

The Ugly: The later missions take a sharp drop in quality, the text (particularly mission exit text and descriptions) often scrape the fourth wall, and MAL’s backstory and dialog really leave a lot to be desired. He’s built up as some mysterious figure, but turns out to simply be Master Al, the cyborg-faced guy with robots and unexplained ability to grant amazing powers to dissatisfied children. Basically, the arc’s weakest point is that it has almost no cohesion, it feels like a wild jumble.

Overall: [Not Rated]

I don’t think it would be fair for me to rate this. It obviously needs a lot of help. The player’s role in all of this definitely needs rethinking. This story is about Liberty Rose, and the player is simply watching it all play out as her life goes on. The custom faction has some potential if MAL’s ability to grant unhappy children magic powers were explained, and MAL himself fleshed out a lot more. I don’t like giving bad reviews, but this arc has a long, long way to go before it’s good. I’ll definitely look at it again if the above complaints were addressed. Good luck with the arc, writing an origin arc that anyone who isn’t the player behind the character in question will want to play is very difficult.

Arc Name: The Audition
Arc ID: 221240/221242
Author: @MrCaptainMan

Character: Phoenix Down (Level 50 Blaster) running on Invincible (Difficulty 5) toned down to Difficulty 1 due to an AV partway through.

Our contact is Synapse, who is piggybacking on an AE construct and totally not virtual. In recognition of fifty levels of burning bad guys alive, we’ve been invited to join the Phalanx if we can pass six heroic tests. Our first test is to “Succeed Against Overwhelming Odds” by destroying a legion of Frownobots. M’kay then. “Focussing” should be “focusing.”


Mission 1: Toto, I don’t think we’re in Skyway anymore. The faction seems to be blue-skinned alien babes named ‘Destiny’. I run across an “Arachnos Lifepod, and deciding that the best way to find out what’s going on is to burn things, find a corpse and a datapad within. The Destinies appear to be part of a hivemind. I’m then directed to destroy “focus nodes”, which I do. The Destinies turn out to be fairly tough in groups, being empaths. After increasingly creepy and clingy dialog from the Destinies, I am utterly run over by a huge swarm of ambushes and loved long time. Ow. I liked the chained spawning of the nodes along with additional patrols, it made what would have otherwise been a tedious objective hunt much more interesting. The Destinies gave my blaster some trouble as they really loved their chainholds, but nothing showstopping.

Mission 2: After failing our first task utterly, Synapse sends us off to Siren’s Call to play cheerleader for Statesmen and Citadel to “Inspire Another to Greatness.” Of course, where we wind up isn’t Siren’s Call, but instead a cave map. And who do I find but Lord Recluse, who is feeling too apathetic to crush my puny blaster skull? After freeing him, he proceeds to follow me about the cave watching me mow down his lackies. His lost/recapture text is awkward, probably want to look at this again. After destroying the Timelock device, a couple of Mu show up and melt my face. I’m sensing a pattern here. Good use of a captive, even if his text was a little awkward. Next mission.

Mission 3: This time around, I’ll be fighting Dark Phoenix Down (sounds surprisingly awesome?), supposedly. And by supposedly, I mean obviously not. In big orange text is a warning to play this at D1, which I patently ignore (I’ll tone it down if I have to, but I’m a rebel.) The custom faction here has a pretty funny concept, I was wondering what might have inspired an evil clone of my blaster to dress her minions up as matadors and baseball players. Oh, and hi Chimera. Alright, you win. Down to D1. Chimera gives me some problems, but sufficient purples solves everything. All three clues are conveniently also in this room, they gave me a chuckle. We’ve got a mess of new objectives to complete now. Delving further in, I’m delighted to see that I don’t need to find Diabolique, but simply free her. In the cloning vats, I find evil clones of the Phalanx growing. Evil clones growing evil clones. I’m sure that Positron will be ever-so-grateful for my hard work in here. The captives in here are great, both in how they’re used and their amusing dialog (Siege’s in particular). One of Neuron’s “captors” says “the Bosses”, where it should be “the Boss’s”. I finally run into Tyrant, an actual EB fight. After he goes down, another objective appears. The protoclones are ridiculous and my eyes may never recover. I especially liked States Alley Brawler and his mighty afro. Mantidelmina will forever haunt my nightmares. After a few grueling fights against the amalgamations of Phalanx members, the mission is over, and on to the second arc of the… arc.

Mission 4: Our next task is to “Resist Temptation” by not looting a completely unguarded bank, and for once, we do wind up at said unguarded bank. Naturally, it’s being looted by monochromatically clothed evil nuns from the future, led by Mother Superior. No, really. Comparing the manifest to the contents of the bank after we’ve cleaned house, there’s one bar missing. Oh f-.

Mission 5: That’s right, we have another “easy” one. We’ll be Forgiving Someone For Their Misdeeds. What could possibly go wrong? Synapse’s teleportation, that’s what We’re on a ship fighting a musically themed gang of humming fiends who must have taken lessons from Dick Valentine. The objective is vague, but I figure out soon enough that this mission is a sequence of singing bosses that spawn one after the other. It’s an interesting way to force a kill-all, though it is still a kill-all in the end. The great use of dialog really redeemed it though. The boss at the end was quite tough due to mass-ambushes, you might consider toning this down as a lot of sonics at once utterly annihilated my blaster (well after the boss went down, though, so it was no real problem.) He was also packing Aim which would create problems, but a lone Sonic isn’t too bad. This is probably one of the most frustrating encounters in the arc, but nothing terrible. The clue text was humorous and quite clever. Of course, we’ve once again failed. Can I kill Synapse yet?

Mission 6: It’s quite a finale alright. We’ll be Saving the World this time, from the no-longer-dejected Lord Recluse who is using some weapon to suck the world into the pain dimension. Quite. As usual, Synapse sucks and sends us to the wrong place, a space faring vessel of some sort this time. Our foes this time are the Servitors – Read, storm elementals. There’s a load of bosses, all custom. It made for an interesting romp, for sure. As I grab the glowies throughout the ship, I find out that Bad Things Are Going Down, and that hyperadvanced aliens will be destroying the Earth momentarily to reclaim a power source (the Sun, as it were). The ship’s computer, Lam, is delightfully arrogant, and directs me towards the thingawhatsit – unfortunately, this was near the front of the ship, and was destroyed before I’d even found the first computer. Perhaps you should have this set to become active only after the last computer is accessed? Overall, it was a fun mission. As with the rest of the arc, the clue text and dialog is spot-on. Oh, and we failed again. Just saying. Synapse berates us some more, and the arc is over, having saved the world something like three or four times.


Custom Faction: Hoo boy, this is a list. The first custom faction, the Destinies, weren’t much of a threat, but did drive me up the wall a bit due to both being control heavy and being hardcore healers.
I loved mission 3’s faction, not so much for the power picks but the costume and nature of the group.
The amalgaphalanx were very, very tough due to having Aim, sapping, healing, and other nasty tricks. Not too frustrating, but certainly a challenge.
The nuns were a pure weapon faction, which I’m not especially a fan of due to the ludicrously powerful throwing knives, but it wasn’t paired with anything maddening. Their orange skin confused me a bit.
The mummers were probably the most frustrating, due to packing loads of –resistance and some mez, but only the boss (see below) really bothered me.
I liked the use of Storm Elementals in the final mission, but if you have the room, I’d suggest taking advantage of the new critter customization and renaming them and changing their description.
The Galactic Constructors were fairly tough, and broke up the mission nicely without being hard enough to threaten the completion of the mission.

The Good: Despite some odd moments that fell a little flat, it succeeded as a humorous arc and makes great use of advanced mechanics.

The Bad: Unavoidable, but the custom factions ended up being pretty small (presumably due to filesize) and felt a little thin.

The Ugly: Silencio, pure and simple. Something about Sonic/Sonic bosses with most of their powers is just pure hell. Silencio alone could easily wreck me between Dispersion’s resistance, his disruption field, and the sonic attacks due to amplifying any additional –resistance. Add in what seemed like three ambushes and this guy created serious problems. Given, I ran this with a blaster, so this was an extreme case. If one of the ambushes and his Sonic Dispersion were to go, it’d be manageable to most players. Of course, as with most things, a handful of purples to the rescue. Hardly ruined the arc for me.

Overall: [*****]

The arc wasn’t without problems, it’s rather tough for a humor arc. But in the end, I enjoyed it a lot and would definitely run it again. There is a lot of detail and hard work put into this arc that is apparent playing through it. Some of the jokes seemed a little random, though. Not necessarily a con, just a personal preference. Excellent use of complex mechanics is what won me over with this one. The theme behind all of it pulled everything together nicely, giving you a feeling of satisfaction after all is said and done while also being funny. It’s a very good “unsung hero” story.

I enjoy custom factions, but I'd rather see a well-used recolor than a poorly-created Custom. This arc should meet the requirements you've given, there are a number of non-custom mobs but in all likelihood the custom faction will mow them down before you get to them anyway.

Due to a number of complaints about the power picks of the faction in question, and the arc generally being too difficult for most soloists, I have divided it into an "easy" version and a "hard" version. The hard version is the older version of the arc that I've run repeatedly before, and is likely going to be of much higher quality. That said, the easy version could certainly use the feedback, though prepare to be underwhelmed. It really needs some help. The difficult version of the arc ends with an extremely hard EB who, to the best of my knowledge, has never been fought as an AV and might be ludicrously tough as one. Fair warning given. The level range of both arcs is 47-50.

Easy: 271728
Difficult: 271731

Red Warlock:
[ QUOTE ]

Second, about the Dead Horsemen, I can see how it might have been confusing that the Dead Horseman contact is an ally, but later you find Dead Horsemen who are your opponents. The horseman contact actually explains that the Dead Horsemen are guardians of the warlocks, and your contact is betraying the warlocks and his fellow horsemen to warn you about the warlocks because they are becoming too powerful. The contact even tells you at one point not to tell the other horsemen that he gave away their secrets. He talks about it at a couple points, but I can see how that might have been confusing.


[/ QUOTE ]
It may have been my attention slipping at times, sorry. Early on, I got the impression that the Horsemen were guarding the Underworld from intruders, but opposed the Warlocks.
[ QUOTE ]

About his style, I've had people tell me they love the Dead Horseman, and it sounds like you found him creepy and not someone you wanted as your contact. I think that's a legitimate style thing. Glad to hear your take on him just to know what people think...


[/ QUOTE ]
Well, given that he's a member of the villainous faction (as I now know), I can accept the fact that he doesn't feel trustworthy.
[ QUOTE ]

About the Dead Horsemen powerset - I actually love that they have Dark Armor because I just think they look really cool. (and the armor helps you see them in the Ruladek Caves - I actually made sure that all the villains had auras or glowing powers to make sure they could be seen). For a single player I think the three horsemen are just right. I want to test them some time in a large team to see if they would be too much.


[/ QUOTE ]
My problem wasn't really that they were Dark Armors, it was that they had Dark Regeneration, which can drive non-defense characters to madness on bosses or above. The stacking aura damage and OGlooms are interesting, but they may overwhelm big teams.
[ QUOTE ]

I like that choice for the lieutenant again just because of the visual character I was trying to create (especially in the Ruladek Cave - it's nice to be able to see this misty horseman in the distance...). But I can see how it might have seemed misplaced...


[/ QUOTE ]
I think you were going for a foggy/misty theme then? Understandable, but Shadow Fall might make more sense for this.
[ QUOTE ]

"Adamastor is awesome." - I don't know why, but I find it so satisfying to watch the Adamastor assist you in smashing the pulp out of these ramped up elite power warlocks - there's just something really fun about it... (although it's frightening when the Earth Warlock or Shadow Warlock confuse the Adamastor and he turns on you - that can be scary). And yeah, when Red Warlock regenerates, that can be a fun surprise!


[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't have that happen to me. I'm glad, not sure that my frail widow could have held up against two EBs at once, hehe.

Ozzie Arcane:

The Arachnoid Caves in general seem to be unreliable, I had a massive hole in the wall where one could fall off the map in the old version of my arc. Some of the arachnoid caves seem to work fine, and all it took was a mission restart to get through yours, but maybe just using a Smooth Cave Map would work?

I'll admit that I did feel a pang of disappointment that it didn't turn out to be some sort of plot to pacify or brainwash my hero in the end, but I think that was part of the idea. Part of my feedback to the arc was that I felt it was one of the most mean-spirited and nasty arcs I'd played, and I liked it all the more for it.

I like feedback of all sorts. However, and I think this is part of the problem, I'm not willing to compromise on anything and everything in order to please someone. I cherry pick feedback for suggestions I like and pass up on suggestions I don't like. People have their own idea of a fun arc, a good storyline, a believable NPC. If the one reviewing doesn't share this vision, the author can either make that compromise (which very rarely happens), try to defend their choices (which leads to this percieved "you don't like anything"/"stop being a carebear" dilemma), or they can take the feedback for what it is, subjective feedback, and simply ignore it.

Arc Name: BE Prologue: Gangs United
Arc ID: 250480
Author: @Ozzie Arcane

Character: Vale Whiteshadow (Level 13 Warshade) running on Heroic (Difficulty 1)

Our contact seems to be a bum who is discontent with the big names of heroism blowing him off. He goes on to mention a secret plot by the Illuminati to attack Paragon, leaving little wonder that noone is listening to him. But, being the good samaritan I am, I agree to look into his tinfoil hat craziness. We’re sent off to stop this organization from dealing with the Hellions.

Mission 1: Ominous mission entry text implies much fun to be had with Illuminati plots. After mowing down some rabble, I come across a ‘Corrupted’ – a pale-skinned hellion with horns and glowing green eyes, the product of enchanted superadine going by the description. Further in, we find “President Evil” of “Big Evil”, an odd comination of black-and-white superhero getup, boney shoulderpieces, a medieval helmet with glowing red eyes, and a big freakin’ skull for a chestplate who appears to be selling the hellions magic superadine. But it turns out that it was just a robotic body double. I’m sure we’ll see more of this eccentric fellow. After seeking out the other corrupted, we’re ambushed by trolls who aren’t happy about this superadine reaching the hellions. Interesting.

Mission 2: This time, we’re shutting down Evil Incorporated at a meeting with the Trolls. They’re definitely a social evil corporation. But, there’s a twist. Evil Incorporated has injected three lucky trolls with super serum. These Frost Giants seem to be emulating the outcasts. So we have damned hopped up on superadine and elementally infused trolls. Hmm, seems that someone’s trying to start a war. Sure enough, we meed Lord Xuma, another member of Big Evil, who shows an interest in recruiting the elemental trolls as soldiers for some war. He’s a bit more subtle in appearance than President Evil. Sure enough, he too is an android. Next mission.

Mission 3: Sounds like the Fambly isn’t playing Evil Incorporated’s game, so now we’re stopping an Evil raid on a Family base. Typo in the mission entry text (‘here’ should be ‘hear’). Quite a few of the “altered” thugs, and the first appearance of a “Zombified Hero” who begs for death. After freeing the few remaining Fambly, we find Psycho Falcon, a purple ninja accompanied by recolored 5th columnists. He’s a real nice guy and lets us know where his evil corporation is based, but only “cause we’ll fail.” We’ve really got a cheerleader here. Next mission.

Mission 4: Shut down the Big Evil base. Compass text made me laugh. After plowing through loads of Big Evil Nazis, and a few glowies/destructibles later, I come across the Human Succubus, who uses her good looks to throw me into the air and trash my poor kheldian. A few purples later, I’ve finished the mission.


Custom Faction: The custom hellions made good use of Romulus Nictus’ sword. Frost Giants were mostly obscured by Ice Armor’s obtrusive toggles. The BE members looked entirely ridiculous, particularly President Evil. I could tell that they were supposed to be quite over-the-top, but President Evil might have been a bit much. They broke up the occasionally dull objective-hunting effectively.

The Good: Good for low levels, which is more than you can say for a lot of arcs. Uses almost entirely existing factions while still avoiding feeling like Dev-Created Content.

The Bad: Some of the costumes looked a little silly and some of the text was mildly awkward.

The Ugly: The second mission spoiled this a bit for me. I found myself having to run the mission a second time because a Frost Giant vanished off the map. I know this isn’t your fault, but it’s a property of the map, and an arachnoid cave map was a strange choice in itself. It’s not that I didn’t like the arc, it’s that it didn’t do much to inspire me to want to replay it.

Overall: [*** ]

I respect that it’s difficult to create entertaining low-level content that isn’t too difficult, but as with a lot of lowbie arcs, it got to be a bit tedious. I liked that there were some custom mobs that weren’t too difficult to break it up, but the objectives still felt more like chores than having a logical flow to them. The ending seemed a little abrupt, I was itching to clock the real versions of the villains fought up to that point in a spectacular finale.

Arc Name: Shadow Rune of the Warlocks
Arc ID: 124319
Author: @RedWarlock

Character: Operative Cordell (Level 41 Night Widow) running on Vicious (Difficulty 3)

So, our contact seems to be an unpleasant, rotting fellow named The Dead Horseman, who I’d like not to meet in a dark alley. He’d seem to be part of a society called The Dead Horsemen, who are enemies with some Warlocks that have taken Adamastor captive below Moth Cemetary. His text is a little dry, but I’d expect that from this zombie-satyr fellow, and no errors are apparent. Begin mission one.


Mission 1: Banished Pantheon, what a coincidence that I bought my lethal damage-laden Widow! (/cough) I’m a sucker for BP arcs, they’re quite underexposed in the game proper. Our goal is to find the map to the ominously named Moth Underworld. It turns out to be a tiny map, and we find the glowie in question without incident. The language on the tabletmap is similar but not different to Banished Pantheon symbols, implying that we’ll be beating up some non-BeePee later on. Still no errors apparent.

Mission 2: Our unpleasant friend tells us that we might be finding some forbidden secrets and buried history in this next chapter. But what’s this? The compass text mentions that we need to find the history of Fyre Moth. It turns out that the map is the Ruladuk cave, a real love-hate map filled with impossibly thick brown smoke. We finally encounter the dwellers of the Moth Underworld, who turn out to be Dark Horsemen, and like our contact, quite literally horse men. These fugly little fellows have some strange powerset choices, numbering among them several armor-users and quite a few blasting enemies. From their descriptions, we find that we’re descending into Purgatory. Oh dear. Thankfully, their armor effects make them a bit easier to see in this notoriously confusing map. This mission features quite a few objectives, but they’re oddly (plurally) worded. Changing these to singularly-worded objectives (‘History of Warlocks’ instead of ‘1 History of Warlocks) would probably make the compass subtext more clean-looking. The clues provide us with an interesting bit of backstory on the warlocks, some faux backstory on the Banished Pantheon (ex-warlocks), Fyre Moth (Moth cemetery was a city of mages during colonial times, it seems), and how the Cemetary came to be cursed. It’s a stretch, I’ll admit, but I’ll buy it. Thankfully, the glowies are clustered into one room, so searching this smoky cave wasn’t necessary. Finally, we come to the-

Oh dear. Our boss turns out to be a *trio* of Archery/Dark armor bosses packing Dark Regeneration, but softcap to the rescue. Larger teams would very likely be overwhelmed by the number of OGlooms, damage auras, and Dark Regens, so the small teams warning is certainly warranted. You might consider getting rid of Dark Regeneration, I didn’t run into any issues with it as it never landed, but in duos or trios that aren’t defense-based, this fight could be an absolute nightmare. Overall, though, I found it an enjoyable (and profitable) challenge. After inserting giant spikes into their faces, the Horsemen were happy to show us the stairs. Still no errors.

Mission 3: Upon entering the mission, we’re greeted by Adamastor’s description as entry text. Interesting, though it seems a little out of place. Just a short way into the Cabal tree-cave map, we encounter the Shadow Warlock, whose costume was a real strong point. Beware of Illusionists, though I don’t believe he fired off any deceives. His description is interesting aside from the mention of ‘mystery cults’, which comes off as a little out of place and silly. My large metal spikes of justice villainy fail me not, and he falls. Being a small map with numerous bosses, it has a sort of “gauntlet” feel to it. Next up we find the Shadow Rune in question and – the Dark Horsemen? Why are they guarding the rune? I may have missed or misunderstood something here, but I was under the impression they opposed the Warlocks. Immediately afterwards, we find more Dark Horsemen holding Adamastor hostage. Same confusion as above, but alleviated by the humor of seeing Adamastor kneel in hostage position. Addy is nice enough to shamble off to the surface without eating my face once freed, thankfully. Finally, we meet warlock number two – the Red Warlock. Once again, a good costume and a quick messy fight. Beware of Dark Miasmaist. After a customary “I shall return!” retort, the mission is completed.

Mission 4: Sounds like the Warlocks aren’t happy about my freeing of Addy. So unhappy, in fact, that they’ll be elite bosses this time. Oh dear. “4 Defeat the Warlocks” should probably be changed to “4 Warlocks to Defeat”. But, what’s this? I get Adamastor as an ally? +Awesome points. It seems we have some groups of Dark Horsemen out and about as well. I’m probably beginning to sound like a broken record, but why are they out here? After freeing Adamastor from *more* Dark Horsemen, I look around in the immediate area to find a new face, the Ice Warlock. There is an error in his description in that it states that Thetis created Adamastor, while in reality she banished him. Beware of stormy, and this is a big one, because storm control can be a *nightmare*. However, thanks to my gigantic rotting, vomiting, footstomping friend, he goes down in a snap. I got a laugh out of his dying words. Continuing my romp through moth footstomping and vomiting on everything in sight, I find the Red Warlock again, who’s certainly changed his colors. Well, he hasn’t, but you know what I mean. He’s now a Necro/Firey Aura warlock, who despite taking a good while due to his armor, drops with little incide—ohcrapriseofthephoenix. Interesting surprise, nearly got my pet zombie giant killed. Not quite though. I soon after run into another old buddy, the Shadow Warlock, who is now packing Dispersion Field and chooses to hover just out of reach and annoy the hell out of me. Adamastor, once again, makes this fight much easier than it would be otherwise and vomits on him until he dies. After he goes down, I notice something peculiar – the compass text regarding the warlocks has become “Red Warlock”, though the final Warlock nearby is the Earth Warlock. Perhaps this should either be changed to “Defeat the Final Warlock”, or the Red Warlock should be set to spawn after the other three are defeated. The Earth Warlock’s Unaware text is bugged, as $name displays as “$name”. I don’t know if this can really be fixed, but it was worth mentioning. His costume wasn’t up to snuff compared to the rest of the Warlocks, but it wasn’t particularly bad. This fellow is a Plant/Earth Controller with both pets, and a ton of –defense, so he oddly gave me more of a run for my money than the rest of the Warlocks. But giant zombie to the rescue, and so he fell. Our contact finishes the arc on a grim note and advises us not to feed the giant zombies. The souvenir text once again implies that Thetis granted Adamastor his power, though she actually imprisoned him.

Custom Faction: The Moth Underworld Dwellers weren’t overly nasty or frustrating, but some of their powerset choices seemed off, most notably Storm Control on the lieutenants. I’d recommend Dark Miasma, but Tar Patch severely offends some folks.

The Warlocks were easily the height of the arc, and with the exception of the Earth Warlock, all had excellent costumes. Their powersets were interesting and fitting, and managed to be a decent challenge without being ‘cheap’.

And finally, we have the Dark Horsemen. Now, as a custom critter, I didn’t mind them overly much, aside from having Dark Regeneration while simultaneously appearing in large numbers. My beef with these cows is that they are just used so much in the arc, and in a lot of places where they don’t seem like they should be. Perhaps I misunderstood the nature and agenda of the Horsemen, but all the same, as an all-boss faction, they should probably be used more sparingly. Their frequency cheapens the challenge of them a little.

The Good: Warlocks are good villains with an interesting backstory, the feel of ‘exploring’ the underworld is captured well, Adamastor is awesome.

The Bad: Overuse and perceived misuse of Dark Horsemen were my biggest complaint.

The Ugly: Nothing overly offensive throughout the entire arc, can’t say anything really ticked me off.

Overall: [**** ]

I liked the arc, it was challenging yet enjoyable, and did I mention that Adamastor as an ally was awesome? The story was an interesting take on the nature of the Banished Pantheon and Moth Cemetery. My dislike of the Horsemen was already expressed above, but even that really wasn’t that big of a deal to me. Enjoyable arc, I’d run it again even if only for the last mission.

Well, all the cool kids were doing it. I'll be reviewing whatever, no Quid Pro Quo, specific genres, or anything fancy. I've given extensive feedback on a lot of arcs, and tend to target arcs which haven't received much in the way of ratings, though that certainly isn't a theme here. I want to keep the queue to a maximum of five for now , and might expand if I decide to continue reviewing after the first few. So, let the test run commence.

A few things about how I tend to look at arcs. While I play story focused arcs exclusively, you'll be hard-pressed to find a story that I will rate the arc down severely for. I look more at how enjoyable the arc was. This is about the enemies (custom or otherwise), the flow of objectives, the (hopefully lack of) tedium or frustration in completing said objectives, etc.

I am a self-admitted carebear when it comes to ratings, and won't actively give lower than a three, preferring to let the author change the arc so that I can give it the rating it has potential for. I don't mind long arcs, or arcs with relatively low rewards, so long as I don't feel like my time is being wasted. Some things that bring my blood to a boil, however, include LTs with Build Up, minions that use "heavy" debuffs, anything with Rage, et cetera. I don't discourage doing this really, only that careful thought is put into how these are used, because it's very rare that these are justified. I'll be critical of how they're used, but won't knock off a star on that criteria alone.

TL;DR version: Don't expect an in-depth look and dismantling of the story, because unless it is truly terrible and ridden with plot holes/grammatical errors, it won't bother me. I read clues and text carefully, but primarily to look for errors and glaring plot holes. My main concern is how enjoyable the arc itself is. Complex mechanics and well-designed custom factions, costumes, and descriptions are a plus.


Current Queue:
The Rikti Accession – 278757
The Ballad of Murky Thecat - 77311
The Bravuran Jobs - 5073
The Fracturing of Time - 171031

I'll second the Exploding Planet as well. It was fun. The last mission, while tough, isn't really impossible. I would suggest a travel power and a lot of AoE for it. And don't be afraid to use insps.

Bonus points for deliciously corny costumes.

Criticism is fine, but I have to agree that if the best advice that can be given to the author is "take the arc down, delete it, and die in the most painful way imaginable", perhaps the arc wasn't meant for that reviewer.

[ QUOTE ]
The other day, I was arguing with someone about how dull and boring MA farms were. Then behind me I heard the unmistakeable voice of the MA (Nevermind that it doesn't have a voice)

"That's a shame Mr. Arcane"

Next thing I know, I wake up and I'm a girl! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!

[/ QUOTE ]

You better get off the interwebs then, you're not allowed here any more. >


MA gave me cancer.